Resources & Links

A few lists of books & quotes

Books on the Craft and Theory of Nonfiction

I’m forever making lists of books I love. I have a long list of creative nonfiction books that I recommend my students look at. But lately I’ve been getting into reading theory and commentary on nonfiction as a form, so I’ll also start a running list of those “books on books.” I feel a bit behind in learning about this stuff, so my list is a bid rudimentary, and I’d love suggestions!

Chris Anderson, ed. Literary Nonfiction: Theory, Criticism, Pedagogy. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989. I can’t stress how good this book is. Such an excellent collection!

Albert E. Stone. Autobiographical Occasions and Original Acts: Versions of American Identity from Henry Adams to Nate Shaw. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1982.

“[W]e should remind ourselves again that autobiography is a content, not any particular form.” (p. 271). This was an ah-a moment for me, something I can take right to the classroom. Elsewhere in the same book, Stone lists many, many forms that fit under (in his thinking) autobiography: “Memoir, reminiscence, apology and confession, testament, case-history and life-history, diary and journal, personal journalism, the nonfiction novel or mock autobiography are all descriptive terms–some traditional, some newly invented–for different kinds of storytelling acts and cultural occasions included in modern autobiography.”